An Introduction to the Calculus of Environments

Abstract

The paper deals with the modern appropriation of Lucretius’ atomistic philosophy as presented in Louis Althusser’s late writings. The aleatory materialism that Althusser elaborated in some fragments from the 1980s argues for the total contingency of any world, which is nothing but an accidental clutch of atoms resulting from a Lucretian clinamen. Althusser interprets “world” in a broad sense as referring both to cosmological and ontological global arrangements and also to particular political and practical states of affairs. By claiming that thought and necessity are always determined by a certain connection among atoms, Althusser touches upon the problem of the “principles of cohesion” — the sub-semantic field which determines the semantic but is not itself semantic. However, these principles are described by Althusser only metaphorically and without further elaboration. The paper proposes a further development of these principles derived from aleatory materialism. Althusser’s late writings are placed in the context of Leibniz and Kant’s thought in order to clarify the importance of Althusser’s problematics for time dj-ing, or TJ-ing — the immanent protocols for intercutting between and stitching together possible worlds and time-series. Building upon Kant’s concept of transcendental schematism, the paper proposes a system of quaternary gestural code and twelve basic environmental types which provide an immanent answer to the question of what e principles govern the clutching of atoms. This in turn forms the basis for the operation of a new kind of computer as an alternative to the two basic New Age kinds of machinery based either on carbon-energy or silicon-information.